“You must. Good-by! I don’t know—perhaps—you may never see me again alive. You won’t think any worse of me—will you—if I ask you to—to kiss——”
She stopped, abashed, confused, ashamed. Then, with his arm about her, he kissed her.
“You are my hero!” she whispered. “I shall always think of you as that! I shall dream of you! I shall pray for you! Good-by, Frank!”
“I will think of you,” he responded. “I will pray for you! Good-by, Hilda!”
He hurried away, carrying the silver rifle that had led him into such fearful peril, and, as he went, he heard her ordering one of the men to drop his rifle, declaring she would shoot him dead if he fired a single shot at Frank. No shot was fired.
When Frank met his friends in Mattawamkeag, he triumphantly held up the silver rifle. But when he told them what adventures and perils he had passed through in recovering it, he aroused them to a high pitch of excitement.
“Well, hanged if you don’t have the luck!” grunted Browning. “You have all the fun! I’d given a cent to have been there! Oh! if I could have obtained a crack at old Dugan! Why didn’t you salt him for keeps while you were about it, Merry?”
“I didn’t want his life on my hands,” said Frank; “but I would give almost anything to know how severely Hilda Dugan was wounded. It was an awful tramp through the woods, but I got out to Danforth that night, and here I am.